Hold onto your hyperthreaded horses, because this is liable to whip up an angry mob -- Intel's asking customers to pay extra if they want the full power of their store-bought silicon. An eagle-eyed Engadget reader was surfing the Best Buy shelves when he noticed this $50 card -- and sure enough, Intel websites confirm -- that lets you download software to unlock extra threads and cache on the new Pentium G6951 processor.

I saw that the other day on the OCC news page I'm kind of mixed whether its a good idea or not I mean it could be useful if they start selling 1 cpu and then you can upgrade to any model in that series without having to take apart your computer.

Of course they could start charging more to upgrade a CPU then to buy a new one so I guess it really depends on how they set up the pricing and upgrade structure.

I'm kind of surprised that they allow you to upgrade with just a code I mean couldn't somebody just come up with a hack to generate these codes or automatically active the CPU.

I saw it one day last week on the net, first thing that came to mind was that this wont last long because someone is going to unlock them with out paying and Intel will not make any money. Everything in this world involves money, they get you coming in, while your hear them take about half when you die so it doesn't surprise me at all...

So if they keep the program then the options will be, get an Intel and pay extra to unlock it, or go AMD and get a BE at the same price or less. Hmm, decisions, decisions.
I'm not greatly in support of this plan because it really seems like paying for what you already bought, to me at least. At least they're just testing it for now, and only on the lower end stuff. I am interested to see where this goes.

So if they keep the program then the options will be, get an Intel and pay extra to unlock it, or go AMD and get a BE at the same price or less. Hmm, decisions, decisions.I'm not greatly in support of this plan because it really seems like paying for what you already bought, to me at least. At least they're just testing it for now, and only on the lower end stuff. I am interested to see where this goes.

Um....it's nothing like that. Your decision when buying from Intel will be, buy the cpu with these features already available, or buy a cheaper model with them disabled, and further down the road you can pay to activate them later if you choose to do so. It's a good idea, I just don't see it as something that will get very popular.

Um....it's nothing like that. Your decision when buying from Intel will be, buy the cpu with these features already available, or buy a cheaper model with them disabled, and further down the road you can pay to activate them later if you choose to do so. It's a good idea, I just don't see it as something that will get very popular.

I'm thinking you may have missed the point I was trying to make, but that doesn't matter (I probably didn't do a good job putting the point in before anyway).Yeah, I can see the advantage to "upgrading" your CPU at a later date when you need/want them. But, I would like to throw this out there. To offer higher end CPU's this way (currently it is just low end) requires that the crippled chips be fully functional. That means that the supply of the high end chips will be reduced as it is split between the two versions. Well, reduced supply means increased price, unless Intel really ramped up the production of those models. It's not like disabling something in a core that doesn't pass every test so you can still make some profit, these chips have to pass every test first. But, this hypothetical situation would only be an issue if Intel implements this on the higher end chips, and other popular chips. Now, if they keep it at the lower end, for netbooks and nettops, then I can see a market for it. Buy something for the battery life, at some point see you need more power, so pay a little bit and just carry around a charger with you. That could work.

I see this as a way for intel to have really low production costs (for they are mass producing a single chip) and enthusiast users like ourselves to get those benefits for free .

A possible win win, if the lower production costs translate into cheaper chips.

Motherboards may down the line be able to offer the unlocking ability similar to AMD's, but it'd be a hit or miss endeavor. If the process were to fail, then you could then send in your chip in with the $50 and receive back the upgraded stable model.

Idk, it's an odd system to be sure, but if some genius programmer can get me HT for free. I'll be for this every day of a week